Tatas peeved over Flag bandwidth

The Tatas-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam (VSNL) has charged Flag Telecom for providing preferential treatment for allocating bandwidth to Reliance.

The international long distance (ILD) carrier has claimed that the Reliance's requests were favoured over that made by AT&T and MCI WorldCom.

In a letter dated March 4 to Flag, VSNL has said "although Flag continues to justify its preferential sale to Reliance on the basis that its commitment to sell capacity to Reliance pre-dates any request for capacity from AT&T or MCI, VSNL regrets to reiterate that the access agreement in no manner reflects or even mentions any such commitment to Reliance. Flag's claim, therefore, remain unsupported and in fact are in contradiction to the documented facts." Reliance Infocomm officials declined to comment on the issue.

However, S K Gupta, managing director, VSNL, said, "VSNL has been the pioneer in connecting India to rest of the globe with multiple and diverse sources of bandwidth. The international bandwidth systems, both through undersea cables as well as satellite, have enabled individuals and corporate to fulfill their overseas communication requirements for over 130 years. ..The subject of differences between VSNL and Flag Telecom is a purely commercial issue among the two signatories of the Flag Cable system. VSNL and Flag are engaged in a dialogue at this point of time, and VSNL will not be in a position to comment further".

VSNL says Flag had itself pointed out that AT&T's request for activation of bandwidth (2 STM-1) to India was made on May 15, 2003, while it intimated sale of 2 STM-1 to Reliance Infocomm on May 28, 2003 andd another 4 STM-1s to Reliance Infrastructure on June 6, 2003.

This clearly indicates that "the last tranche of 4 STM-1 capacity was obviously not sold by Flag until May 28, 2003."

VSNL also pointed out that it is not concerned with the terms and conditions on which Flag has leased assignable capacity to Information Technology Enterprises (ITEs) and "Flag should resolve its own disputes and issues with the respective ITES".

However, VSNL has stated that it is willing to negotiate in good faith a set of reasonable terms and conditions and will look forward to a proposal from Flag in respect of the entire remainder of the assignable capacity".